avoid notice, walk.
On that night a year ago, the advice had failed. Ammen had covered less than two dozen paces before he’d heard angry shouts behind him. Two young men had come out from one of the shabby houses that lined the street, leaving its door open to spill feeble lamplight into the night. One crouched by the drunken, groaning figure on the ground; the other was staring after Ammen. The two youths exchanged a few curt words — enough to tell Ammen that the man he had robbed was their father — and then the chase was on.
Ammen knew the streets around Kolkyre’s harbour as well as anyone. It was his father’s territory, and thus his. But his pursuers had longer legs, and they were driven by powerful indignation. They ran him down in no time, and he turned at bay in a tight, lightless alley that stank of fish guts. Afterwards, turning the treasured memory of those moments over and over in his mind, he was proud that even then, with the two burly youths bearing down on him and shouting their fury in his face, he had not felt fear. Their anger made them careless: in the deep darkness of that alleyway they did not see Ammen draw their own father’s knife from its scabbard. He slashed the first one across the face and was rewarded with a piercing howl of shock and the sight of his assailant reeling away. There was no time to savour the victory, for the second closed and Ammen took a stunning blow to his head. The crunching sound and the splash of blood over his lips told him that his nose was broken, but he was so dazed by the impact that he felt only a numbness that spread across his cheeks. He fell, and his attacker threw himself down on top of him, fumbling for the hand that held the knife. Ammen never could remember exactly what happened then, but he knew that he stabbed the young man more than once. He might not have killed him, for the blade was short and his strength faltering. It was enough, though. Ammen staggered to his feet and ran, rather unsteadily, for home.
Ochan’s pleasure on hearing of the incident lit a glow of pride and joy in Ammen’s heart.
“Keep that blade close by you,” his father had laughed. “It’d be wrong to sell something that’s served you so well. We’ll call you Ammen Sharp now, shall we? The little boy who grew a tooth.”
So Ammen became Ammen Sharp, and treasured the name. Having borne it for a year now, it felt as much his true name as any other. Only Ochan called him by it; his mother and sisters remained ignorant of its origins. Being a secret shared only by Ammen and his father, it had become that much more precious to the boy.
He was with Ochan, watching as his father sorted through a pile of trinkets, when his cousin Malachoir — one of the numerous distant relatives who served Ochan as thieves, runners, watchers, guards — poked his head nervously around the door. Ochan was engrossed, minutely examining each bauble and bracelet for any sign that it might have some true value.
Ammen had no idea where this little hoard had come from, and the question had not occurred to him. From his earliest years he had understood and accepted that goods and materials of every imaginable kind appeared in his father’s possession and then, just as abruptly and inexplicably, disappeared once more.
Malachoir cleared his throat.
“What?” snapped Ochan without looking up. He disliked interruption.
“Urik’s here,” the cousin reported. “He wants to see you.”
“What does that mudhead want?”
“He won’t tell us. Says he needs to talk to you. Says there’ll not be another chance if you won’t talk to him now.”
With a snarl of displeasure Ochan let a copper brooch fall from his hands.
“I pay that man so I never have to see him, not so that he can visit me in my house. It looks bad to have a Wardcaptain of the Guard showing up on my doorstep. Attracts attention.”
“Well, he was hooded when he came. And he did come to the kitchen door, not-”
“Enough, enough,” Ochan grunted. “Get him in here.”
The man who entered was short and broad-shouldered, a stocky little bull. He wore a voluminous rain-cape that concealed any hint of his standing as a member of Kolkyre’s Guard. Narrow, dark eyes darted from side to side as he edged into Ochan’s presence.
“Look at that, look at that,” said Ochan to his son. “Our very own Wardcaptain come to test our hospitality.”
Ammen smiled, and then tried to fill the gaze he turned on Urik with suitable contempt. He knew this man was useful — important, even — to his father, but knew as well that he merited nothing in the way of respect.
“Don’t puff yourself up too much, Ochan,” Urik growled. “I’ve come here to warn you, not amuse you.”
“Warn me? Warn me?” Ammen felt a shiver of anticipation at the tone in his father’s voice. He knew it well. It presaged anger, danger, violence. When he was younger, Ammen had soon learned its perilous implications. Urik evidently did not recognise it, or did not care.
“Yes, warn you,” he snapped. “And I needn’t have come, so don’t think you can-”
Ochan was up and out of his seat in a single smooth movement, lashing a long arm across the table to seize the collar of Urik’s cape. He pulled the Guardsman’s face close to his own.
“I think I can do as I like in my own house, don’t you, Urik?”
Urik hesitated for only a moment before nodding. Ochan released him and sank back into his chair. He had knocked some of his piled trinkets to the ground, and flicked a finger at them.
“Pick ’em up, boy,” he said to Ammen, who obeyed at once, going down beneath the table on his hands and knees.
“What is it you think you’re warning me about, then?” he heard his father asking.
“That your luck’s run out, that’s what. You’ve been named for taking. The Guard’ll be looking for you tomorrow. It’ll be me, as like as not.”
“You?” roared Ochan. He sprang to his feet once more. His chair tumbled backwards, one of the legs rapping Ammen’s hip as it went. “You? Is it that I’m not paying you enough, Urik? Is that it? You’ve got yourself a hunger for more of my hard-won coin. That’s what this is about, is it?”
Ammen stuck his head up above the level of the table, not wanting to miss such excitement. Urik had shrunk back towards the door, holding up both his hands as if he could fend off Ochan’s anger.
“No, no,” the Wardcaptain insisted. “It’s nothing to do with that. I don’t want a thing more from you, Ochan. Not now, not ever. You don’t understand. This isn’t us, it’s not the Guard. The word’s come down from higher places, from the Tower of Thrones itself. You’re to be taken and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Nothing.”
“Then what use are you to me?” hissed Ochan as he edged around the table. “I’ll have back every coin I’ve passed into your stinking, fat little hands all these years.”
“But I’m here, I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here to give you the chance to disappear.”
“Oh, yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? If they take me, your name’ll be the first to spill from these lips, Urik. You’ll join me in whatever cell they’ve got in mind for me, or under the headtaker’s axe.”
“Ochan, please…” Ammen grinned to hear such a note of pleading in the voice of this man who held high office in the city’s Guard. “Please don’t think such things. I’ve taken my life in my hands just coming here to warn you. If I could turn them aside from your trail, don’t you think I’d do it? Haven’t I done it often enough before? No, this is beyond me, far beyond me. Your only chance is to take yourself off somewhere you’ll not be found.”
Ochan the Cook rushed forward and drove the Wardcaptain back against the wall. He pinned the small man’s shoulders to the stone.
“It’s the Shadowhand,” Urik cried. “They say it’s his command that you be taken. Sweet Gods, what could I do in the face of that? Nothing! Nothing!”
Ammen rose quietly to his feet. His father was silent and still, staring into Urik’s fearful face. Ammen had heard of the Shadowhand, of course: the Tal Dyreen who whispered in the High Thane’s ear.
Ochan released his grip on Urik’s shoulders and stepped back, deep in thought. The Wardcaptain shook himself and resettled his cape about him.
“You must find a hiding place, Ochan. Take yourself away from here. You’ve family in Ive, haven’t you? Or better yet, you could take to the Vare: no one would find you there.”
“You want me to hide away amongst masterless men like some common cutpurse?” Ochan growled. “Don’t insult me. You must be wrong, anyway. Why would the Shadowhand care about me?”
“How would I know?” snapped Urik in exasperation. “I’m only telling you what I’ve been told. The order came through the High Thane’s Steward, but I heard he used the Shadowhand’s name to nail it in place. That’s all I know, and if you’ve any sense it’ll be enough. Disappear, for a while at least. Maybe the clouds will clear once all this trouble with the Black Road is done and the Shadowhand is back in Vaymouth.”
